Comments by "TheThirdMan" (@thethirdman225) on "Joe Scott"
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@KaleRylan
"A lot of nations struggled with the idea of the UN from the beginning because it was seen as interfering with national sovereignty. Which it was."
Which is why lawyers recommend you read anything before you sign it. Honestly, I know you're right but I also know that they knew this before they signed on the dotted line.
'Sovereignty' was always going to be a problem but it involves concepts that are not necessarily well understood in places like the United States or Australia, which is where I'm from. That is the concept of disputed territory. We're not very good at understanding it because it has little or no bearing on our lives, yet border disputes and nationalism are critical concepts for world peace. The Donbass, for example, is what would be described as disputed territory. The Crimea probably also fits the bill. The Sudetenland was disputed territory. Most of the former Yugoslavia was disputed territory.
You see where I'm going with that?
Some nations. like Russia or Serbia claim sovereignty over those places and over smaller nations like Ukraine, who might have an equally compelling claim.
After WWII, I'm sure this was in the minds of a lot of people.
"Again, it's up to you how you feel about that, but to JUST make it out to be bad faith arguments by big greedy countries is an overly simplistic view. Why SHOULD a country, big OR small, have to listen to a bunch of other countries about what to do?"
I've explained the basis of what I consider to be 'bad faith', even though I think there was a lot of optimism when the treaty was signed. More than 50 countries had agreed to it by the end of 1945. The bad faith started afterwards when the predecessors of today's billionaires got into the ears (and hip pockets) of the politicians and lawmakers of the day because they had been exploiting small countries for centuries. As someone said when Nixon was facing probable impeachment: 'Why change Dicks in the middle of a screw?'
That's the bad faith. The politicians were very positive about it. Once the mega rich had words with them, the positivity evaporated.
"Had it been formed as originally conceived as essentially a government over the other governments, then I'd be for it as it would essentially function as a global democratic government."
And I would definitely agree.
"As it currently exists, I'm simultaneously sad that dialogue is all it is capable of and philosophically of the opinion that dialogue is pretty much all the power it has any right to."
So it really must continue.
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I wish more people would take this stuff seriously. I'm Australian. We use what's known as the "Washminster system", a combination of the British and US federal systems: Westminster and Washington. Federally, we have a bicameral system (two houses) and we are a federation, like the US. We have three levels of government: federal, state and council, which is why many people believe we are over governed.
The two houses are the lower house and the senate. The lower house is elected by preferential voting and the upper house - which is elected by state - means the entire senate system is basically proportional representation.
One of the more controversial aspects as far as Americans are concerned is that our head of state is the King. His representative in Australia is the Governor General. The leader of the government - the Prime Minister - is elected by the party in the lower house with the largest number of seats. Voters don't actually have much of a choice and while that might be a problem, every voter basically knows who the leader of the government is going to be, which ever party wins, when they vote, in the same way America does.
We also have a system here which would never be accepted in the United States: compulsory voting. If you don't vote, you get fined. No American is ever going to agree with that. Former Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull says that Australian elections are fought in the centre. Pretty much everyone agrees with that. Another thing that has contribute to that has been the decline in the two-party system. In our most recent election, the biggest factor was the rise of what were called 'Teal independents' - basically 'blue' (which in Australia means conservative, as does "Liberal") but with green policies. A lot of moderate hard and conservative candidates lost their seats to these Teal candidates.
The more diverse the candidates, combined with the preferential system, makes for a much higher level of democracy because your candidate has, in effect, a louder voice than in a two party system when party bosses talk of 'loyalty' and enforce it with some brutality.
Our system is not perfect. I suppose sooner or later someone will find a flaw in it an exploit it but for the time being, it works. I expect that at some point we will become a republic, simply by replacing the King with the Governor General as head of state. But in fact, the British monarchy has nothing to do with running Australia and virtually never has.
We have postal voting and early voting and we love it. It works. So people's opportunity to vote is pretty good, which it should be because you get fined if you don't.
You also need to be active politically if you want democracy to survive. Stop complaining and write to your local member (Rep.). That's the only way anyone is ever going to know what the public wants and it reminds them they're being watched.
Good video Joe. Really well done. Anyone who has a problem with this content is beyond help.
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